Welcome to Rusty Blades Woodshop

Wel-come… to the wood-shop.

Oh, me so dusty.

If you weren’t raised in the ’80s, you’re gonna have to look that one up.
If you know, you know.

Where This All Started

Back in the early ’80s, I was a kid in a tiny town, living a quarter mile from the nearest neighbor. My playground wasn’t a mall or an arcade—it was my dad’s shed.

As an only child, I managed to claim a corner of that shed as mine:
my play area, my “laboratory,” my bike shop, my little woodshop. From about age 7 to 14, if I was home, I was out there messing with something.

One year I found a half-rotted board and decided it needed to be a sign.
I grabbed a rusty old wood chisel and carved my name into it, then added Construction Company like I actually had clients waiting. The spelling was… let’s say “creative,” but I was proud of that first “business.”

That was the first spark—proof that the idea of having my own shop wasn’t just a daydream.

Broke, Not “Poor”

Fast-forward about 40 years.

I grew up broke, not poor—there is a difference. We didn’t have much, but we had enough, and I had a ton of freedom. I babysat myself, played cars in the dirt, disappeared into the shed, and built whatever I could out of scraps.

My parents worried about money a lot. That gets baked into a kid’s brain.
My friends seemed to get things easier; I had to grind harder. As I got older, I never really learned how to manage money—only how to stress about it.

So for about 30 years, that’s what I did: survived. Worked. Paid bills.
Survival mode. Not really living.

The “Good Job” and the Hard Reset

As a young adult, I landed in a job I actually liked… but the pay sucked.
Surviving was possible; thriving wasn’t.

Then the factory where my mom worked had a lottery system. Current employees could put in a name of someone they knew who needed a job. She put my name in.

They drew her ticket.
And just like that, I got in.

My income basically tripled overnight. It felt like I’d “won the lottery,” literally and figuratively.

And like a lot of people who don’t grow up with money, I did exactly what you’d expect:
I spent it. All of it.

Junk I didn’t need.
Women I should’ve left alone.
Toys and “playthings” that fell apart faster than I did.

For 15 years I worked that “good job,” got paid very well for what I was doing… and I blew it. No real savings. Just stuff.

Then the layoff hit.

Too many loans, no income, and then bankruptcy. At 37, I was starting over with no savings, no real safety net, and a whole lot of regret.

Some people treat “starting over” like a fun second chance.
I didn’t. I went straight back into survival mode.

The First Big Shop… And the Crash

About 30 years ago, I had my first real woodshop. Nothing fancy, but I made small projects and actually sold them. This was pre-YouTube, pre-social media. If you wanted to learn something, you learned it the hard way: trial and error.

No tutorials. No influencers. No one filming you, waiting for you to screw up.

Once I got good with my tools, I leveled up and took a risk:
I got a loan and built a 33×36 pole barn with a concrete floor—my dream shop. Plenty of room. Plenty of potential.

Then, a month after it was built, 9/11 happened.

The world froze. People stopped buying “luxury” wood projects. I held on for a while, but you can only juggle bills for so long. My hours at work got cut, the company was on its way out, and I ended up filing for bankruptcy again. I kept a few assets, but I lost the big shop.

The tools went into storage.
The dream went into hibernation.

Seventeen Years of “Almost”

Things have been rocky since 2008. “The struggle is real” isn’t a meme for me—it’s just life.

Seventeen years later, I hit a point where I was done just surviving.
I pulled together what I had, tightened the belt, and decided to take the plunge again.

Starting a business when you’re putting in everything you’ve got?
That’s not a side hustle—that’s a full-on Vegas roulette spin. You know the house always wins.

This time, I’m betting on the house.

Round Three: Rusty Blades Woodshop

Which brings us here.

Simple Treasures. Woodshop Creations. And now:
Rusty Blades Woodshop.

This is round three. I’m aiming for “third time lucky.”

Why Rusty Blades?

Because when you’ve gone 17 years between shops, everything gets rusty:
your tools, your habits, your confidence, your skills.

Some of the tools I held onto are literally rusty.
Some of my skills are, too.

So the name fit: a little beat-up, a little weathered, but still sharp where it counts—and worth restoring.

No, I don’t have red hair.
No, “Rusty” isn’t my real name.

Rusty Blades Woodshop is about this:
a renewed start, doing it better the third time around, and finally stepping out of survival mode into something that actually feels like living.

Wel-come to the wood-shop.
Wipe your feet, mind the sawdust, and let’s see what we can build from here.